Abdus Salam

Abdus Salam was born in 1926 in Jhang, Punjab, British India (now Pakistan). Abdus Salam's background is described as Punjabi; Ahmadi Muslim family. Growing up, the family was middle class — his father was an education-department official in a farming district; a devout household of modest means. The highest exam marks ever recorded in Punjab at 14; the first Muslim science Nobel — a word later erased from his gravestone.

Born

1926 · Jhang, Punjab, British India (now Pakistan)

Roots

Punjabi; Ahmadi Muslim family

Family

Middle class

His father was an education-department official in a farming district; a devout household of modest means.

Education

Government College Lahore → St John's College, Cambridge (scholarship)

Started with

A record exam score

The highest matriculation marks ever recorded at Punjab University, at 14; the town lined the streets to greet him.

Affiliations & societies

Ahmadiyya Muslim CommunityDocumented

His lifelong faith; Pakistan's 1974 constitutional amendment declaring Ahmadis non-Muslim drove him from the country.

Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.

The pathway

1. 1940 · age 14
   The record score

   Wins a scholarship to Government College Lahore on the strength of it.

2. 1946 · age 20
   Cambridge

   A scholarship assembled in Punjab carries him to St John's; a double first follows.

3. 1951 · age 25
   Returns to teach in Lahore

   Finds himself the only theoretical physicist in the country; leaves in 1954, calling the choice one between physics and Pakistan.

4. 1964 · age 38
   Founds the ICTP

   The Trieste centre gives scientists from developing countries what he never had — a way to stay connected without emigrating.

5. 1974 · age 48
   Leaves Pakistan in protest

   Parliament declares Ahmadis non-Muslim; Salam, a national adviser, departs.

6. 1979 · age 53
   Nobel Prize in Physics

   For electroweak unification, shared with Weinberg and Glashow; he accepts in traditional dress and quotes the Quran.

7. 1996 · age 70
   Buried in Rabwah

   A magistrate later orders the word "Muslim" effaced from his gravestone's "First Muslim Nobel Laureate."